Cracks in the Ceiling

The pressure on the price ceilings was nearing the bursting point. There had been little cracks in the ceiling before, and last week a real fissure appeared. The price of all raw fruits, protected by Congress, had gone up; Henderson's price ceiling on canned fruits had thus caught middlemen in a squeeze. So Henderson had to raise the ceiling 15%. To U.S. families, which bought some $225,000,000 worth of canned fruit last year, this meant a $33,750,000 boost in the food bill.

One such fissure would inevitably lead to another, until the entire ceiling cracked. The nation's fight against inflation, begun with President Roosevelt's seven-point program last spring, had turned into a retreat, might soon be a rout.

Whatever had become of the President's program? He had introduced it, with his toughest, bluntest talk of the war, on April 27: "Each and every one of us will have to give up many things to which we are accustomed. We shall have to live our lives with less. This program [is one] of self-denial." Now. only two and a half months later, point by point it had been compromised, watered down or plain forgotten:

> Congress still debated a tax bill which: 1) was $2,700,000,000 short of the Treasury's goal; 2) left the inflationary purchasing power of the new rich almost untouched.

> Price and rent ceilings had been established-but Congress would not give Leon Henderson the money to enforce them.

> Far from being "stabilized." wages steadily moved higher. Last week the War Labor Board's fact-finding committee recommended a new boost: $1-a-day for Little Steel's some 200,000 workers (see p. 75).

> Farm ceilings were still computed by Congress' highly inflationary formula.

> The President had hinted at forced savings if bond sales did not increase. Yet last month bond sales were $200,000,000 under the quota-and forced savings were an ever-vaguer threat.

> Congress did not want to give Henderson the money to enforce rationing.

> Installment buying had been cut deep -but now there was so much spending money in the country that almost nobody cared.

After tough talk had come inaction. To save the nation from inflation, Franklin Roosevelt would have to move quickly.

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